


The Desert's Flower, the Desert's Secret; Blood Will Bind Them All

by cjr09



Category: Eldemore
Genre: Gen, a fandom character related fanfiction, also spoilers for the current planned ending for Binds of Blood but really, anyway I'm sure you wanted me to return with like, anyway here's a fun story about Asena and kind of how she met up with the Task Force, but nah, does anyone care, it'll probably change on me b/c I can't focus on one thing literally ever, lot of reference to death and injuries but nothing graphic, nah it's just my ocs again, none of the others make too many like specific appearances, or at least not very graphic, they're just chillin the the background, this is a mess already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8852704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr09/pseuds/cjr09
Summary: Asena is not a wolfkin; not really. She was born of wolfkin parents, raised in a wolfkin pack, her ears and tail are the same as the wolf's. Her fur is a startling white, and when she is very young her mother teaches her the desert's secrets.She cannot bond to any Dire Wolf, no matter what kind or what age. Her nails are not sharp claws. She cannot take any wolf form, at all. She is not a part of the pack.Asena is not a wolfkin, at least not where it counts. And Asena-Asena hates.





	

When she was young, still a small pup, her mother had been _Ves’en._

 

Her mother had been tall and commanding, scarred but understanding, always ready to bear her teeth not in a snarl but a smile.

 

She had had eleven pups- Asena was her youngest, her weakest. Her white flower seemingly unsuited to the desert’s heat but thrived under the moon.

 

She had always made time for them, for her children, and loved them all. She taught them the secrets of the desert, what desert plants were safe to touch, and eat in a pinch, and what they should avoid at all costs.

 

She had never looked at Asena and thought _small._ She had never looked at Asena and thought _weak._

 

She brought her white pup with her when she travelled alone, clinging to her back. She brought Asena when they travelled as pack. She taught Asena, above all else, locations. Safe caves, known Sandwyrm pits, watering holes. She taught Asena how to lead to safety- she taught Asena how to _lead,_ because she saw such potential in her white wolf. She saw such loyalty, such fighting spirit, and would not let her pup think otherwise.

 

And then she was gone.                                                                                                              

 

It is the wolfkin way, sometimes- when clans come together, there will be a fight for dominance. Her mother had lost the fight and her life. The wolfkin of her pack growled and huffed but they will get over the loss of their Alpha and accept a new one, because the new one had proven themselves stronger.

 

When she was young, Asena had lost her Alpha, her _Ves’en,_ along with the rest of their pack.

 

Asena had been the one to lose two brothers and a sister in the fight for dominance.

 

Asena had been the one to lose three sisters and a brother when they fled into the night to form their own familial pack.

 

Asena had been the one to lose the remaining siblings to the new Alpha’s cruelty- sent, along with two other Alpha’s that had been mother’s-mates, to their deaths from Sandwyrms. The new Alpha claimed he knew nothing of the pits and that it was a tragedy.

 

Asena had been the one to lose her _Mal’rayi,_ her mother.

 

And Asena’s mother had taught her to know better.

 

* * *

 

The new Alpha is not so cruel, after that. Asena does not like him, still, but she is young and white-furred and frail and he overlooks her.

 

Asena does not trust him. Many of the other wolfkin do not, and Asena thinks that there are many who cannot bring themselves to think of him as _Ves’en_ like her mother before him. But it is the wolfkin way and the alternative is to be _A_ ' _taihin_ and they keep themselves quiet.

 

A few challenge him for dominance. None succeed, and many of those do not live through the fight.

 

The couple that do die later.

 

He is a wolfkin, yes, large and strong and dark of skin and fur like so many, walked with a commanding air. His wolf form is massive, powerful, and he has two strong dires bonded to him. He should be everything an Alpha should be, everything a wolfkin should be and everything she is not.

 

Asena does not trust him. She keeps her head down, as best she can, and helps to care for the Dire pups and the youngest _Ban’on_ of their pack. The mothers of the pack like her, think that her mother would be lucky to have her, but she is not _theirs_ so she is on the outside, even among her own pack. She had lost her mother and none had come to claim her.

 

She has a pack, a last name that is not cursed. She has food to eat and people to talk to and places to travel. She is raised with the others of her mother’s pack and the others of the new pack.

 

She laughs and bleeds and hunts with them as best she can. She tries to think of this as her new home, her new pack. She is not raised alongside a young dire who would be her bonded, and she does not transform into anything of the same likeness.

 

She is on the outside.

 

She is _A’taihin,_ even if no one will recognize it.

 

She is only a wolfkin in appearance. There is nothing on the inside.

 

* * *

 

She grows. She is still frail, still very white. She still knows the desert and many of its secrets and she shares them with no one.

 

She is still small- she is very small, for a wolfkin, and thin. There is no lupine power in her bones, no itch of claws or teeth where the smaller, blunter ones are. Fur does not itch to grow from her skin.

 

She is still mostly overlooked. _Pretty to look at,_ she hears when they think she cannot, _but not useful._

 

_Pretty, but frivolous._

 

_Nice, but empty-headed._

 

_Kind, but clueless._

 

Asena _hates._

 

Asena does not want to hate- it is a churning, twisting feeling throughout her entire being and burned her from the inside out until there was nothing left but ashes. It makes her want to cry, but she does not because no water can be wasted in the desert. It pulls on the last inklings of something primal in her to howl. She never does.

 

She likes dresses, and frivolous, ‘pointless’ things. She likes looking nice, likes braiding flowers into her hair. She likes being pretty, because she doesn’t often feel it.

 

The others shake their heads and roll their eyes. They are not practical things, things that have little to no place in the harsh desert, and it shows.

 

The dresses rip. Shoes lose their shine. The flowers braided in her hair are blown away or wither and die. She has to leave things behind more than once.

 

Asena likes them, because they are like _her._

 

* * *

 

There is another _t’asvor._

 

Wolfkin from another clan come into hers, talk and mingle. Tension is high in the air.

 

Asena makes herself scarce. Goes to be with the youngest of the children and pups, tries to make herself useful in a cheerful, airheaded way she’s mostly perfected.

 

There is another fight. Her pack loses.

 

She cannot bring herself to be relieved, cannot bring herself to be angry.

 

She feels numb. She didn’t know the packs’ name. The new pack takes in hers and gives her a new one. She does not learn it.

 

She loses nothing, that time. The Alpha of the old pack is dead and the new one takes over- she is tall, and powerful, and commanding. It is a painful reminder of her mother, and Asena averts her eyes more in pain from the memory than submission to her. The Alpha puffs up in misplaced pride anyway.

 

The new Alpha snarls more than she smiles. She has three _Ban’on_ boys and she makes no time for any of them.

 

Asena does not like her, either.

 

Her _Ban’on_ are nice, cute. Asena keeps an eye on them as she has taken to doing all of the pups- the unofficial and unspoken oldest pup watching over everyone.

 

They do not understand why their mother does not look at them, are confused and helpless and lost and they blame themselves, for not being big enough, strong enough, _Alpha_ enough.

 

Asena _hates._

 

She cannot imagine where she would be without her mother’s guiding words, without her direction. Asena still knows the desert better than most, after all these years, though she still will not share her secrets because if nothing else she has the desert. Her mother had trained her to _lead_ but not to be _Alpha_ and Asena feels a new wave of revulsion at the wolfkin who calls herself _Ves’en,_ who calls herself _Mal’ryai_ to these pups.

 

She does her best to teach them in place of their absent mother. They call her _‘Ukht._

 

They call her _sister_ and it is the best title Asena has had since she was _Aib’na,_ daughter.

 

It is almost enough to drown out the _useless,_ to drown out the _hopeless._ It is the first wave of happiness she has had for a long time.

 

She tells them stories when they cannot sleep. She carries them on her back, with her dresses and bows and shoes, when they get too tired of walking because the Alpha will not stop to let them rest. She tells them about the stars and directions.

 

She tells them how proud she is of them when they finally bond to their Dire pups, one right after the other, and their mother turns her back because she had _expected_ no less, and really, it’d taken them long enough.

 

She tells them about her mother, tells them her guidance. She thinks she will teach them what her mother has taught her, sometime.

 

There is another _t’asvor,_ and like before, there is another fight.

 

Asena loses three brothers to the new Alpha, bent on destroying any who came from the old one.

 

The new Alpha is cruel, exceptionally so. His pack is large and he has many, many, many children. He does not know any of them.

 

His pack fears him. Even the bonded Dire by his side shrinks back when he raises his hand and he reeks of death and rotten bonds.

 

Asena does not fear him. He has cost her three precious brothers, her first real family since the first. He has cost her the pups they had been so excited to bond to. He has cost her many other children that she watched over and did her best to protect, silently.

 

Asena _hates_ and it coils through her like a Sandwyrm’s venom. She is hurt and angry and he passes her over because she is small and cute and frail.

 

Asena drops her eyes when he looks at her because she would not be able to keep the revulsion from her gaze. He smirks and moves on like she had submitted.

 

If she were wolfkin she would fight him- fight for control, dominance, for the sake of the pups he had so cruelly killed. There is no push of fangs in her mouth, no claws come to her hands. Her eyes do not sharpen with deadly instinct and fur does not grow to protect her skin, to keep those which she called hers warm. She aches to fight like she has never ached before but there is no wolf in her to answer her call.

 

Asena _hates._

 

* * *

 

It manages to get worse, after that.

 

The pack is undoubtedly one of the largest in the desert; they move often, now. They must to find enough prey to hunt, enough water to drink. It is still not enough.

 

Asena leaves behind all of her things. She likes flowers and dresses and pretty things, but she loves the _Ban’on_ like they are her own.

 

Her possessions are nothing in the face of mad _Ves’en_ and sick, crying, starving _Ban’on._

 

The clothes on her back and the desert’s secrets are all she owns. She bites her tongue against her _hate_ , tries to make sure the pups can eat, both wolfkin and dire. Many of them die anyway.

 

She is small, and frail. Even when the moon shines bright overhead, she cannot hunt with the pack.

 

Asena is not wolfkin.

 

* * *

 

Asena knows the desert's secrets.

 

The mad _Ves’en_ leads the pack into one littered with Sandwyrm pits and death. He splits the pack, makes several small groups of the youngest _Ban’on_ and dire pups and the oldest of them. Mothers heavy with yet-unborn-pups are sent out, and those who do not know how to hunt or are too injured, too sick to do so are shoved to their aching feet.

 

There are seven groups in total. Asena is sent off with one.

 

Hers is the only one that returns, no prey in hand, but alive.

 

Asena is not wolfkin but she knows the Wyrms feasted tonight. She can hear the gleeful, gluttonous shifting of the dunes and sand. She can hear the choked screams and wet splash of blood. Asena dips her head as the mad _Ves’en_ snarls at them, breath stinking of death. The _Ban’on_ whimper from hunger and they are not fed.

 

Asena _hates._

 

* * *

 

The pack is large and weak. The mad _Ves’en_ feasts on their food and their fear; the only ones strong enough to face him are those most loyal to him. If the _Ban’on_ do not whimper it is because they are too weak to make a sound or dead.

 

Carrion Runes follow them like an omen.

 

They leave the dead behind, unburied and frozen in silent agony. Sometimes, someone will snap and challenge the mad _Ves’en._ Their bodies are left behind, too.

 

The desert does not sing at night. They are often too weak to howl and every animal runs from the stench of death that covers their scents. Asena knows the deserts’ secrets.

 

She knows it has turned their back on them.

 

Asena _hates._

 

* * *

 

There is a sandstorm. The mad _Ves’en_ makes them push through it, makes them walk instead of find shelter. The ones who come out on the other side are gashed, bleeding, skin shredded where it was exposed to the shrieking sands. Asena’s clothes are bloodied, but this is not new. There are layers of blood on everyone, now, their own and others. They all reek of death and illness.

 

The ones who do not see the other side are buried, at least. There are no more _Ban’on_ of either wolfkin or Dire.

 

The pack is not as large as it used to be, but it is weaker than ever.

 

Snarling and huffing, the mad _Ves’en_ declares that they must engage in _t’asvor._ They need new warriors, more warriors. They need stronger pups if they are to survive, they need stronger bonds. He declares he will personally oversee the training of the newest of their pack, they will be stronger than ever. He will make them strong again.

 

Asena does not speak. He has made them weaker than they ever were. She cannot find the strength to form words.

 

The mad _Ves’en_ laughs. The desert has no response.

 

* * *

 

The moons are high overhead that night. Asena does not sleep.

 

She strains her ears.

 

On the horizon, she hears a pack.

 

* * *

 

 _T’asvor_ happens the next morning. The pack is small, and strange. There are many different members of many different species, creatures and kin-like. They smell like a pack, despite this.

 

Asena wants to tell them to run, to escape. She wants to tell them that they will smell like death, too, if they stay. The _Ves’en_ is mad but he is powerful. Most of them have no teeth or claws with which to fight. Asena’s tongue does not work. She lies in the sand, as many of the others are doing. She cannot tell if they are breathing. She cannot tell if _she_ is breathing. Her vision is blurring but she focuses on the strangers, tries to beg them with her eyes.

 

The mad _Ves’en_ curls his lip in challenge. He howls something incomprehensible, though Asena manages a shudder at the tone.

 

The strange pack’s leader steps forward. She is very young and surprisingly small, not much taller than Asena herself, and she is not built by the desert. The challenging _Ves’en’s_ skin has moon’s-glow whiteness and her hair is dark as the night around it. There is a striking set of three scars over her right eye.

 

The other pack’s _Ves’en_ pays the mad one little mind. She looks slowly over Asena’s packmates, locks eyes with those who she can but does not look over the ones who cannot. Asena’s breath hitches when she meets hers.

 

The other _Ves’en_ has two different colored eyes, dark blue and burnished gold, though the latter dulled with blindness. She is half-blood, half-born. She is not half-made.

 

Asena knows the desert’s secrets.

 

This _Ves’en_ is not the desert’s greatest secret, but she is of the same kind. The desert is _ancient,_ though the desert has not always been _Ancient._ The desert is neither Hubris- _Spirit_ or Wilds- _Ancient._ The desert was an _Ancient_ and once she bore the child of her _Primal._

 

This _Ves’en_ is not the desert’s greatest secret, but she is someone’s. She is not _Primal-born_ but she is still as strong, perhaps more. Magic flows from her like a river, radiates like the light from the sun and moons and stars. It is a pressure, crushing and encompassing, cold and warm.

 

Asena’s eyes slip shut. She is tired.

 

There is the unfamiliar-familiar sound of metal weapons being unveiled. Asena does not know if she is breathing. She feels very far away.

 

Asena knows the desert’s secrets.

 

This strange pack is led by the creation of _ash_ and _Ancients_.

 

They will not lose.

 

* * *

 

Waking is a strange, painful experience. She comes back to herself a sense at a time, numbness biting at her limbs. She feels filled with cotton, muffled and dry, like she could burst into flames any moment.

 

Someone shifts her into a seated position, press something to her mouth. There is liquid in her mouth, but she does not know if it is water or blood or soup or something else entirely. She does not know if it is real or if she is somewhere in limbo, a momentary burst of conscious for the not-wolfkin; she who would not hunt eternally among the stars and sands with Hubris or Wilds. She is not wolfkin, but she is not anything else.

 

The numbness takes her.

 

* * *

 

She does not remember if she’s woken up before. She does not know how many times she has, if ever, and she does not know how long she is awake. Or asleep. She might be dead; time holds no meaning.

 

She does not know. Every time is still more painful than the previous.

 

* * *

 

Asena wakes. They are in a similar place. They have not moved far from the place of _t’asvor._

 

She can smell death, but it is faint, lessened with time and care. Bodies have been buried, blood has been cleaned.

 

Asena is dizzy with illness and relief. The mad _Ves’en_ is dead.

 

Asena sleeps.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, carefully, the pack gets to its feet. Asena does not know who was of what pack, anymore. Their scents mingled and combined under the heavy press of death and she cannot smell the difference between them, anymore.

 

The strange pack who won _t’asvor_ smells like many things at once in chaotic, strange harmony.

 

They smell like _home_ and _family_ and _pack._

 

Asena is not wolfkin, but most of the strangers aren’t, either.

 

She is still ill. Half of her thinks she is dead; the other thinks she is dreaming.

 

Asena sleeps, and wakes, but the new pack is still there every time her eyes open. The stench of death fades to a bad memory.

 

Asena does not know what to think, or what to do.

 

* * *

 

The new _Ves’en_ is strange. She is energetic and loud and talkative, flitting around like the Humming Bumble that shadows her. She is half-born but not half-made and a large, white direwolf walks close to her heels and wags his tails and lolls his tongue from his mouth. They are not bonded but the dire chooses her side anyway. She smiles freely and often. She does not seem to recognize herself as Alpha or _Ves’en_ or a leader.

 

 _(“I mean,”_ Ves’en _starts, thinking hard about Asena’s inquiry, “If you’re so hooked on me having a leader-ly title, I sometimes go by ‘Captain’ or just ‘Boss’.”_

 

Ves’en _smiles, crooked and sheepish and genuine, “I kinda prefer my name, though. So, uh- it’s nice to meet you, Asena! I’m Tetra.”_

 

_She holds out a hand for Asena to shake, grin growing. She is not a true wolfkin Alpha but she has a strong kind of magnetism nevertheless._

 

_Asena is not a true wolfkin._

 

_“I’m Asena.”)_

 

* * *

 

 _Ves’en_ is more of an ‘act first, figure out what just happened later’ kind of leader. One of the wolfkin originally in _Ves’en’s_ pack tells her this, voice fond and exasperated at the same time.

 

 _Ves’en_ did not know (“Didn’t _listen_ when I _told her that,”_ argues the smallest, youngest member with many, many bonds. The _Ves’en_ flails a hand at him in a kind of answer, hissing a “shhh!” to keep him silent. He rolls his eyes.) that during _t’asvor,_ the defeated pack is often, if not always, brought into the victorious one.

 

There is a stiffness in the spines of the old pack at this news. When they are not, they are killed, or worse, forced to become _A’taihin._

 

Half of the stranger’s pack groan at their leader. The other half share looks that seem to communicate _“Why do we follow her again?”_ without saying a word.

 

The new _Ves’en_ gasps at them in mock outrage, and sticks her tongue out at them. The new _Ves’en_ is, apparently, secretly five years of age.

 

Asena leans over to the smallest of the new pack and whispers this to him. He covers a snicker with an unconvincing cough and tells Asena that it’s not really a secret.

 

The stiffness drains out of the old pack, just a bit. They have faced many _Ves’en_ together, but this one is unlike any of them.

 

The new _Ves’en_ paces as she thinks, explaining herself to Asena’s pack.

 

“We’re not going to stay in the desert forever,” _Ves’en_ says, and at the startled looks she receives flails her hands to explain, “Fff- no, I meant that _we-“_ she gestures to herself, and her old packmates that sit nearby, “Aren’t gonna be here forever. I’m- well, we’re sailors. We’re gonna end up going back to the sea, eventually.”

 

 _Ves’en_ places her left hand on her right forearm, seemingly unthinkingly.

 

“Out there’s my home, but right here’s yours.”

 

She taps the sand underneath her with a foot, stilling from her endless pacing.

 

“I’m not going to make you leave it.”

 

Asena’s old pack are not used to this kind of _Ves’en._ They are not used to not being made to do things that they do not want.

 

Wolfkin follow their _Ves’en,_ no matter where they may travel. _Ves’en_ was offering them the chance to stay within the desert, stay in their _home._

 

Asena knows the desert’s secrets. It is not her home.

 

* * *

 

 _Ves’en_ and her pack stay, and they make sure that the pack is stable, that they can hunt and find water again. Asena does not think _Ves’en_ can sense it, but Asena’s pack and _Ves'en's_  own have merged and mingled completely until their scents have become one.

 

Asena does something that she has not done in a long time. She learns the names of her packmates, new and old.

 

 _Ves’en_ is not a true wolfkin Alpha but she has a dire by her side and packmates behind her and offers a strong home and fierce loyalty. Each member of her pack is just as important as the next, different skills and shapes and species and sizes.

 

A few small, roving family units and loners join the pack. They are recovering, regrouping, learning how they are meant to be again. _Ves’en_ is more restless, a little more scatterbrained, but she smiles just as easily as she ever had and three of the pack-members speak with her separately.

 

 _Ves’en_ will assist them with leading the pack in her absence.

 

The pack is visibly disappointed, though not about her choice of Alphas. They will be good leaders when they learn enough to take the mantle, but their time with _Ves’en_ is beginning to come to a close.

 

Asena- Asena does not know what she feels.

 

* * *

 

There is a part of her that hates _Ves’en._

 

She hates that _Ves’en_ will have to leave them, she hates that she will be left behind, she hates that when _Ves’en_ takes her original pack with her with their not-wolfkin pack she will be the outsider, again.

 

She hates that she wants _Ves’en_ to stay.

 

Asena has never begrudged the pack for needing to move, for needing to hunt. She’s been told that it’s in a wolfkin’s blood, in their marrow.

 

 _Ves’en_ looks to the horizon. Sometimes, Asena thinks she can see something glowing on _Ves’en’s_ arm, a trick of the setting sun. Asena listens when _Ves’en_ stays up at night, the dual moons pulling on her blood like a wolfkin’s, pulls and pushes like the tide.

 

 _Ves’en_ stays.

 

For the pack, for her friends, for _Asena,_ she would ignore her blood, ignore the call of travel and home. _Ves’en_ would not leave them.

 

Asena does not hate _Ves’en._ There is not a part of her that _could_ hate _Ves’en._

 

* * *

 

The original, strange pack of humans, wolfkin, elvians, avians, and many, many creatures, are all friendly. They're all good packmates, the kind that any pack would be proud to call their own. Their only fault is that they are not all wolfkin.

 

The smallest and youngest, Lyric, has the most bonds. A Serval, Humming Bumble, Otterling, and small pygmy Liger; when someone asks him about them, he replies that they are not all he has. Lyric has an _obscene_ number of bonds.

 

There is no doubt in Asena’s mind that he could, and likely would, bond to anything and everything. His own eyes do not function, but his ears are as sharp as Asena’s and he has many extra pairs scattered around the places they have once called home.

 

Asena wants to ask him how to bond with a Dire Wolf, but she does not. Wolfkin and humans can bond to them, but Asena isn't either. Not truly.

 

Lyric bonds with another Liger. The Hyena Liger- Macchia, she is named- purrs and pushes into her hand when she pets her. Macchia is Lyric’s eyes within the pack. Even when this new, strange, good pack leaves, they will not be truly gone. They will watch over them and come if they are needed.

 

(Lyric also manages to, impossibly, bond to a pygmy Sandwyrm, who he names simply ‘Sandy’. He refuses to acknowledge that she is a Sandwyrm, and instead refers to her as literally anything but. Sandy fits in well with the pack, all things considered; she seems to see _Ves’en_ as the Alpha of their strange pack, like _Ves’en_ is the Queen and they are all the worker drones. Asena doesn’t know if Sandy sees them as simply strange, dumb Sandwyrms, but Lyric gains three more pairs of eyes with her. The pack will always be protected.)

 

The pack is safe, without _Ves’en’s_ leadership. The slightest hint of trouble and they would be at their side. A part of Asena will wish for it, so that they can be with their Alpha again.

 

Asena- she _hates,_ but in a different, desperate way. She hates this new hate, emotions in a tangle. She does not know what she feels.

 

* * *

 

 _Ves’en_ presents Asena with a dress, one day. They are on the fringes of the desert, dragging out the time until _Ves’en_ and part of their pack will leave them. A caravan comes close, and _Ves’en_ gleefully engages with the sellers and the pack in turn.

 

“You’d said you’d liked dresses,” _Ves’en_ explains, though Asena can’t really remember ever telling her this, “so, here’s one, basically! It should fit- I mean. I hope.”

 

 _Ves’en_ smiles, shoves the dress into Asena's arms before the wolfkin can even begin to think of a reply, and waves as she bounds over to the next packmate.

 

For the first time since she lost her mother, tears prick at Asena’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, they run out of time.

 

“Remember, if you need anything, just- uh. Lyr?” _Ves’en_ turns to Lyric, who rolls his eyes.

 

“Just tell Macchia or Sandy, and they’ll tell me. They’ll be watching," he finishes for her, something fond on his face as he gazes at the pack they'd accidentally adopted with sightless eyes.

 

Asena’s pretty sure he means ‘I’ll be watching’, but she bites her tongue.

 

Asena makes fists in the skirt of the blue, flower-patterned dress _Ves’en_ had given her, fiddles with the bow around her middle.

 

“We’ll see you soon,” _Ves’en_ promises, and with a sad half-smile and a wave, she turns.

 

Asena- Asena doesn’t know what to feel.

 

But she does know what to _do._

 

She stands up straight and dashes after her.

 

“Wait, I-“ Asena catches _Ves’en_ by the sleeve of her shirt, scrambling for words.

 

Asena swallows, meeting her leader’s curious gaze.

 

“I want to come too.”

 

 _Ves’en_ smiles.

 

“Well, why didn’t you say so? The more the merrier!” She turns back in the direction they’re going to be walking, and a few of her pack clap her on the shoulder and welcome her to the travelling party.

 

She feels frozen, for a moment, not sure what she had been expecting. Lyric pushes her forward, gets her moving again.

 

“No backing out now, you know,” he teases, but he seems happy to have another member.

 

And Asena- Asena is happy to be one.

 

* * *

 

The pack- that is, Asena’s old pack that became part of the current one- take up a new pack name. _Ves’en_ is not a wolfkin, so she does not have a pack name to give them, in part.

 

They take the name _Se’rik,_ because no matter how far their pack spreads they will always support themselves and each other, protect one another. Tetra is their supporter, their greatest protector, and she is loved by them all with the same unconditional love and loyalty she shows them. She is _Ayuves’en_ and their beloved Alpha will always defend them.

 

* * *

 

It is many years later. _Ayuves’en_ leads not just a pack but a country, has carved out a place on the map for herself and her own, tucked away in the safe cradle of Leviathan’s Reach.

 

Asena knows the desert’s secrets, not those of the oceans, but she knows that Tetra is a secret belonging to one of them. Apparently, Asena is not the only one who knows.

 

The sun’s secret challenges an ocean’s. The Sun’s child, halfborn but not half-made, has his own followers. He wants Tetra’s followers, wants her land, wants her love. He wants to be the center of the universe, wants to be worshiped. His followers are in awe of his powers; some of them may even believe in his cause.

 

But they are not what Tetra’s are to her. He is not what Tetra is to them.

 

The Ancient-kept secrets clash, and those who follow them follow. A battle cry goes up in a roar around them, shaking the very ground beneath her.

 

Asena’s feet carry her into the fray before she can think twice- her friends, her family, her pack, were fighting. They were in danger; her _home_ was in danger.

 

The marking on Asena’s hand, the sweeping ‘V’ shape that represents her pack, her home, of the Task Force for all the good and bad they may do and however long and short they may exist, burns and itches like there is something underneath.

 

Somewhere nearby, a _Ban’on_ whimpers with fear.

 

Asena does not think, she just _moves._

 

A great white wolf joins the fray, eyes sky-blue and fur short and snow-white; she stands on all fours, the wolf of Hubris, a Dire Wolf missing a tail. Her success stands out in gory detail against her fur.

 

The wolf howls, adding her own voice to the rising din of battle. She will defend, she will fight alongside her pack.

 

Asena does not know what she feels. She does not fight from anger, or _hate,_ or out of a sense of duty.

 

Asena-

 

Asena _loves._

**Author's Note:**

> should I be writing like actual fanfiction about fandom characters? probably. Will I ever finish one of those? Cross your fingers and pray man
> 
> I was in kind of a funk and honestly Asena deserves a lot more love than I give her so here's a backstory and how she met Tetra and Company!
> 
> The last bit of this chapter is technically a spoiler for _Binds Of Blood_ but really. I'm very fickle. It'll probably change.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it! I wrote... the vast majority of this today. Like, almost 4k words of this 5k fic today. I can't tell if it's good or not anymore. Who knows.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought! This was a choppier writing style than I usually take, so it was an interesting experiment. Review, comment, leave kudos, whatever!


End file.
